


The Bösendorfer Grand

by Mitch



Series: Piano [2]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 12:09:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22495894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitch/pseuds/Mitch
Summary: A few short months ago Nicholas Ballard visited his grandson only to be shocked when he saw Daniel owned a piano now. Nick had longed to hear the boy play again, to relive the promise of an incomparable virtuoso, but knew that would never happen. Daniel would never perform for anyone again. But one evil man will change that, even if it means Jack’s life.
Relationships: Daniel Jackson & Jack O'Neill
Series: Piano [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614163
Kudos: 17





	The Bösendorfer Grand

**Author's Note:**

> The under age warning is for comments referencing past acts in the story only.
> 
> Canon references - Episode:
> 
> Fire and Water, many weapons in Daniel's apartment.
> 
> Into The Light, Daniel's first piano is seen, along with many weapons on the walls. 
> 
> Chimera, second piano, many more weapons on the walls, shelves and in an umbrella stand or bucket.
> 
> Shades of Grey, Jack is seen sitting outside on his deck listening to opera music.

Liszt's Sonetto 104 del Petrarca  
The Bösendorfer Motto: Cherish traditions, transcend limits

Mister Black leaned back, feeling the luxurious leather upholstery of the 1970 Jaguar Daimler limousine mold to his athletic form. At fifty-five, few men looked as vital as he.

"This new set of images was made yesterday morning, sir. I took the photographs as the subject and his companion were arriving at the colonel's private residence." The man's Bavarian accent was strong.

Mister Black thumbed through the stack, pausing as he found one he liked. He ran a fingertip over the full lips of the blue-eyed man. "Delicious. Like a fine wine, he has aged well."

The man in the Jaguar's jump seat remained silent. His comment was not needed.

"Ah! Enough of this," Mister Black said as he handed the glossy images back, all but one. That one went in his jacket pocket to be savored later during a private moment. "Late tonight. Let the little lovebirds have their usual Saturday romp in the hay, as the crass Americans say. Everything is in place?"

"Ja, mein Herr. With the gas dispersed inside the home the targets will know nothing until they wake at your command. Transport for them is ready and two medical technicians await on the aircraft that will transport them. All is ready.” 

"Then get out," the pale man said, waving his elegant hand dismissively. He pressed the speaker button by his side. "Charles. The airport. Now." He hated any delay in obtaining his goal. Mister Black frowned, his narrow face drawn but his forehead as smooth as the injections could manage. Aware now of the frown he set his mouth in an emotionless line and checked his posture. It was as perfect as always.

"Yes, sir. Shall I notify your pilot?"

"Of course. I want to be off this dreadful continent before sunset. These frontiersmen disgust me." The tone and words were of dissatisfaction but his visage, his body language projected perfect satisfaction, power and confidence. He’d have his prize soon.

~~~

Pain blasted across Jack's forehead, bouncing from temple to temple like a tennis ball. He struggled to wake up. Bright light, that's the first thing of his surroundings he was aware of, swiftly overlaid with more pain. He rolled and shoved at the surface he rested on. Hard. Not his bed or Daniel’s. Not an infirmary bed. The throbbing sensation in his head almost blinded him. He struggled to sit up, to get off of the hard white ledge and away from the pain. Where was he? He had on what looked like white hospital scrubs. Jack tugged at the stiff cotton around his neck.

The room was cold and all he could hear was a buzzing that sounded like old fluorescent tube lights. The sound added to his pain. 

"Daniel," he whispered, recalling the last thing he could remember before waking to this horrible pain. They'd been at home together. Jack squinted as he peered around, trying to make sense of the unending white he saw. White walls, white ceiling. White floor coming up at him fast. He smacked into it, face down.

Darkness. Moonlight and a cool breeze. Daniel felt the gentle breeze on his face and arms and peered around at his surroundings. He was in the middle of a wide, low bed. The covers he rested on felt silken and cool to his touch. But moonlight? Wasn't he indoors? Daniel sat up. 

"Jack," he called out in a stark whisper. This wasn't Jack's bedroom. They'd been in bed. And then, this? Two adjacent sides of the vast room were made of a series of French doors, their glass panes letting in the pale glow of the full moon. Several of the doors were open and were the source of the gentle spring breeze blowing across his skin. It was ruffling the black sheers hanging by the openings adding a soft shushing sound to the vast room. Daniel rolled onto his side and pushed himself upright. He felt dizzy but underlying the dizziness was a stinging along his ribs.

"Jack?" he called a little louder. Daniel scooted to the edge of the bed and felt the chill of the black marble floor beneath his bare feet. He'd been naked when they went to bed. Now he was in silk pajamas. Daniel fingered the black lapel, his forehead creased in confusion.

Daniel struggled up from the bed, grabbing at its too low edge for support. He took several deep breaths and felt better. Then he shuffled toward an open French door. Earth’s full moon lit a well manicured expanse of garden without. He saw orderly rows of ornamental trees and tidily trimmed shrubs. Swaths of flowers, colorless in the pale moonlight, weaved intricate patterns in the beds that flowed among the hedges and past the trees. Daniel squinted and then realized he had on his glasses. They'd slid down his nose. He pushed them higher and surveyed the garden. He saw no one, just plants, pale statues and a reflecting pool. He saw constellations of Earth's northern hemisphere, very far to the east of Colorado, the horizon dark enough to let him know they were not near any major city. 

Turning back to the inside Daniel crept barefoot across the marble floor. The walls of the vast bed chamber were painted a matte black, reflecting no points of light from the moon.

The only furniture in the room was the black-draped platform bed, situated in the middle of the floor. Daniel walked past it, searching for a solid door that led somewhere other than to a dark garden. If Jack was here in he wouldn’t be in that garden. He found the door when he spotted the faint glow of yellow light along the floor. He left the black room, determined to find where in Europe he was but most importantly what the hell had happened to Jack.

Daniel walked down the wide, long hallway, its matte black walls absorbing all but the strongest pinpoints of light. Several tall paintings of hunting scenes and religious tableaus hung on the walls, each individually illuminated by a meticulously focused spotlight. He peered left and right as he went, eyeing the artwork. Where was this place? The hallway had a wide, woven Persian rug running down the center and Daniel slid his feet across it, feeling the warmth after the cold of the hard marble.

His throat felt raw and he could identify the feeling. He’d been intubated! There was a bruise on the back of his right hand by a prominent vein. An IV?

In the white room, Jack jolted up off the floor. A pain, much sharper than the discomfort that had woken him, jerked him to his feet. He clutched at his temples. A voice boomed through a speaker high on the white wall.

"He's moving, Colonel. That's what you feel," the unseen man said. His words were clipped and oddly accented. "As the distance increases between the two of you, the discomfort ..." The man paused and chuckled, "discomfort will increase. If you let him get too far away you will succumb to the pain and be unable to control your body. You will not be able to move, Colonel. You should get started now. The door is unlocked. Catch up to him. But, ah. Don't touch what belongs to me. If you do, the pain will increase ten-fold."

"Who the hell are you?" Jack shouted, as he pressed his palms tighter to his head. "What the hell have you done? Where is this place?"

"Dense. You are merely the mouse in the maze, Colonel. Go find my wandering bit of cheese before the distance between the transponder we've implanted in your head, and the transmitter in him grows too great. You must stay within twenty meters of my beautiful piece of art or suffer the most amazing pain," the man said, his voice rising as if he were becoming aroused. "Amazing pain," he repeated. "Go now, fool. Find my virtuoso if you wish to stop the pain from killing you."

Daniel walked softly along the hallway. One of the paintings caught his eye and held him immobile. It was Dubufe's Apollo and Cyparissus, with its two male figures in their passionate pose. The younger was reaching up to the hero, arm outstretched. It was easy to see the desire, the passion the older man felt for his prize. Daniel rolled his eyes nervously at the image and then crept past it. His breath quickened. The Musée Calvet in Avignon was exhibiting a fake and probably didn't even know it.

There was Girodet's well-known The Sleep of Endymion, the nude young man sleeping in what had been touted to be a most homoerotic pose. Asleep and unclothed, he was looked over by an equally nude form. This was not a copy and could not be in a private collection. Daniel tore his gaze from the dreaded sight and walked on, his steps hard now. 

The next panting sent even more jangles of alarm down Daniel's spine. It was Giovanni Baglione's Heavenly Love Conquering Earthly Love. The armor-clad angel conquering the being below him would resonate strongly in one man's ego, he knew.

Daniel shook his head, trying to deny what he was seeing. Only one man could have collected these specific works. Only one collector.

At the end of the hall was an open doorway waiting, imploring him to enter the unlit room beyond. With his feet numb, Daniel stepped over the threshold. One lone, gentle spotlight shone down on the sole object in the expansive room, displayed in the center.

A tall figure in black appeared from the shadows, stepping to the edge of the spotlight's circle. Dressed in a bespoke black suit, black shirt and tie, the very pale, tall man ran his left palm along his black hair. He smiled at Daniel.

"Ah, I had thought you'd like it," Mister Black said as he studied Daniel's stark features. "Yes. A Bösendorfer, Imperial Flügel. The finest concert grand ever created. Such fools, those silly westerners with their worship of the Steinway. What do they know of quality, eh, my boy? It was delivered from Strasburg and exactingly retuned the day before you were to come to me."

"Come to you?" Daniel said, his voice barely audible and choked with anger.

"Now, now, my silly little one." Mr. Black walked around the artistic curve of the instrument, stroking his fingertips over the pristine, raised lid. He left marks from the oil in his skin. "You recall the last—"

"No," Daniel said, shaking his head vehemently. "No, I don't."

Mister Black smiled and dipped his head, peering at Daniel's frozen form. "Ah, but you do. I see it in the way you clench your graceful fingers. Fingers of an artist. What were you doing before I collected you again," he chided. "Silly boy, digging in the dirt. Running around the world playing at being a mere archaeologist. Such nonsense. I thought you'd learned your lesson. This instrument is your soul."

Unheeded, tears of anger slid down Daniel's face as he stared at the black and white monstrosity. "I won't play," he swore, shaking his head.

"You will, my darling boy. The Bösendorfer awaits. None other has come close to your exquisiteness, your verve for performing on the piano. I have only the best in my collection."

"No," Daniel said. Then he tore his gaze away from the taunting row of black and white slashes. He stared up at the pale face of his captor. "I'll kill you first." 

Mister Black smiled and shook his head. "I am so disappointed in you. Remember the Bösendorfer motto? Cherish traditions, transcend limits. I cherish you, my boy. Together you and I will transcend any limits our time apart has set in your gifted mind. Come, my darling virtuoso." 

The man's voice dropped to an obscene growl. "Touch it."

Out of his white confinement, Jack heard no sounds. He was either in a ship drifting engineless in space or a basement. The best choice in either situation was to go up! To his left were earth-constructed stairs. Jack scrambled up the stairs, digging at the flooring with his nails. He slipped down on one hardwood tread, bumping his bare toe on the riser rather hard and then scrambled up to the top landing. A door defeated his progress for a moment until he realized it slid into a smooth recess. A pocket door designed as a secret panel was no secret when it was the only means of leaving the top of a stairway. He left it open and raced down a long hallway, gaining traction as he crossed onto a long rug. Down the hall he ran, the pain in his temples subsiding as the pain in his stressed lungs built. There were probably more of those hidden doorways but the pain only lessened as he moved forward down the hall. Jack ran on.

Sweating and gasping he burst into the dark room at the end of the hall and fell to his knees. The pain in his head was gone. He hugged his stomach, fighting for breath.

Daniel whirled toward the door and saw Jack. He leaped in the man's direction but froze mid-stride when the pale man shouted for him to halt. Quivering with rage Daniel turned back to the man. The collector never raised his voice unless damage or even death was coming.

The voice was soft and sickeningly sweet again. "Touch him and you will kill him, my darling. The shock delivered directly to his brain, in his weakened condition will easily kill him."

Daniel balled his hands into fists and stared in loathsome understanding at the man.

"You remember my powers, I see," Mister Black said as he strolled by Daniel to Jack's kneeling form. He bent over and looked at the panting man. "You are bound to my pianist, Colonel. Stay within seven meters of him and the pain is tolerable. Two meters and it disappears altogether. However, more than a hundred meters from him and the pain will be lethal. Understand?"

He straightened and moved back to Daniel, a satisfied smile on his face. "Ah, and if you touch? The pain will ... How did my technician put it? Ramp up. Yes. That was his phrase. Ramp up. Delightful."

Mister Black smoothed his hair with one palm, walked to the doorway and stood silhouetted to perfection in the light from the hall. His broad shoulders were back, his slim waist angled to accentuate the slim line of hip and thigh. He turned his head back to look at Daniel. "And you are tied to me, my beauty, my treasure. Leave me or leave my home not in my presence and you will feel that ramping pain. Know this also, he will die if your device is triggered for too long."

Finally acknowledging the small pain in his side, Daniel pulled up his black pajama top and saw a tidy row of tiny stitches running between two ribs.

"Bastard," Jack gasped out. He shook almost too hard to stay upright.

"See? Mister Black said. "You will perform for me again, my beautiful virtuoso. You belong to me. And now I shall leave you two lovebirds alone. I think my beauty has much he must share with you, Colonel."

"You’re going down!" Jack yelled as he lunged toward the guy. As his hand touched the man's knee Jack screamed and fell to writhe on the floor in pure agony.

Mister Black chuckled as he left the entryway.

With Jack stuttering in pain on the floor Daniel turned to the piano sitting in the spotlight in the middle of the dark room.

Gasping to get his lungs working again, Jack rolled onto his side on the cold floor. He looked across the hardwood expanse seeing Daniel's bare feet. The archaeologist was in a world of his own. As he lay in a pain-filled heap lit by the entryway while dark minutes passed by Jack's pitiful calls got no response out of Daniel at all. Before he got his body back under control silent men dressed in black carried him out and locked him in a bare, white chamber next door. Hours passed, a mild pain always present. Food was brought along with a white blanket. Jack tried to rest. He lost all sense of time, his best guess was that a day had passed.

Daniel was provided a black shikibuton covered in an equally black kakebuton rolled out by the piano. His clothing was now a set of jinbei, traditional Japanese summer weight sleeping attire. They were black with thin lines in the weave.

He rested, ate, pissed out the water that seemed to flood his recovering system. The IV had hydrated him a bit too well. The trachea pain faded. The sun rose, the futon was removed and he drank water from minimalist facilities he knew well. The sun set, all while his anger burned underneath a profound blanket of despair. He was still weak from the surgery, the pain drugs they’d given him.

Though the doors were kept open leaving without Jack was not an option. How many meters could he go alone before Jack died? Not enough to reach any help. He could see the sky, the gardens, the tree line. He heard no cars, no planes flying low. This place was isolated. 

Two more days passed this way, the collector making brief appearances warning him to practice and Daniel staring into nothingness. Jack wasn’t returned to him and along with his despair he now felt a sharp pain of worry. He heard the occasional bellow from next door that he knew was Jack’s defiance. The sounds seemed to coincide with meal deliveries. Jack would not take this calmly despite the real danger to himself. Jack could cause his own death any minute.

It was probably the fourth night after he’d woken from the sedative that Mister Black returned for more than a perfunctory warning to practice.

After a serous threat to Jack’s continued existence, explaining well that if Jack was no value as a motivator then he’d be disposed of, he got Daniel to sit at the piano. He smiled as he stood behind his beautiful possession and ran his exquisitely manicured hands along the man's shoulders. Tonight the pianist wore another silk pajama set now in a Chinese motif with the little bar closures running up the front. The top had a black on black pattern woven to show orchids when the light caught it just right.

"A little performance," he gently commanded. "Play, and your rough hewn Jack rests easy. You don't want him dragged far from you, do you? He's only in the next room, but I can have that changed if you wish. Or, perhaps you'd prefer I bring him in here, touch him again?"

With the spotlight glinting off the black Bösendorfer’s raised lid Daniel brought his hands up to rest on the keys. He spread his fingers in a familiar pattern and touched the white. The opening notes of Franz Liszt's Sonetto 104 del Petrarca jarred roughly from the opened lid of the world's most expensive concert grand.

In the white well-lit room next door Jack heard music. It wasn’t feeding time in the prison but there was a guard stationed inside his door. That was new! He rose and took up a fighter's stance. He took two steps toward the silent guard at his door and was shocked to his knees again. He panted there, listening to someone playing that cursed piano in the black room. Was it Daniel?

There had to be a way out. Had to be. He'd get past this guard and then ... then what? 

"Appalling," Mister Black chided Daniel. "Why haven't you bothered to practice?" 

Daniel's fingers faltered among the black and white orderly keys. He closed his eyes but the rebuke had done its work. He saw himself long ago chided with those very words and then tied to the top of a grand piano, naked, face up and staring into a frescoed ceiling far overhead. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mister Black's profile as the man moved toward that younger version of himself.

Back in the present Daniel's fingers faltered again. He shook his head and stumbled through a few more notes before jerking his shaking hands away from the keys.

"Ah, my beauty," Mister Black said as he ran his fingers through Daniel's hair. "I will make allowances. You've been without mentorship too long. Have had no one to ... temper your high strung spirit. All greats such as yourself are high strung. I know you need special handling, special,” he paused and drew a breath before continuing, “motivation.

"No," Daniel said, shaking his head as he ducked away from the man's gentle touch. He swallowed.

"What did he say, your tin soldier lover, when you whispered to him on some late night, telling him of our great passion? How you would perform for me and for me only. How we would unleash our passion on top of the piano, my lovemaking giving you inspiration to reach greater and greater heights, eh? What did your colonel say when he found out that I was your first love?” He moved his mouth down to Daniel’s ear. “I took your virginity."

"No," Daniel repeated, his eyes still tightly shut.

"I owned you then, just as I own you now. Did you ever think you could escape my embrace? I doubt it. When the raid came I had to leave behind many treasures. The loss of so many of my living art was painful. I still possess some of course but you were the one I regretted losing the most on that dreadful day. Still, it was good to let a few of you out in the world for a while. Let you experience the squalor and filth of the commoners. But, Daniel, Daniel, this tryst with the tin soldier, it is beneath you. I am sorely disappointed." He tightened his grip on Daniel's shoulders and molded his body against the man.

Beneath the crushing embrace of the man's talon-like fingers Daniel shuddered. Visions of a disappointed Mister Black swam in his fog-shrouded mind. Mister Black's motivation hurt and terrified him when he was too young to comprehend such things. Even now the feeling was too mind-numbing. Daniel fought it but another shudder of revulsion swept over him. He brought his hands back to the keyboard and tried the opening notes again. They escaped him. His hands shook too much.

"You do need help. I'll get the ropes," Mister Black said and gripped his virtuoso, pressed his hardness to the man’s back, riding out the talented artist’s shudders. He smiled as he left the room. He had no intention of getting ropes. The beauty's reaction to his mere words had nearly given him an orgasm!

Daniel curled over the keyboard, his mind howling in terror. Had to end. Had to escape. No way to survive this again. Daniel pushed himself away from the disgusting keys and fell backward off the bench. He scrambled to his hands and knees, heaving as his empty stomach tried to expel what it didn't hold.

As Mister Black passed the door of the room where the military fool was being kept, he tapped once. His guard, armed with the remote trigger, emerged and fell in at his back, joining other goons dressed just like him.

Jack lunged out the open door, pausing to weigh his options. The sick bastard was waltzing off to his right as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Was it the pain trigger or the cadre of goons that gave him that swagger?

Jack whirled to his left. Daniel had to be close. The pain was only a mild ache now that he was out of the room. Jack flew through the door into the piano room and almost tripped over his crawling lover. Barefoot, Jack slid past him and then dropped to his knees.

"Daniel! Daniel," he said hastily. He reached out and then jerked his hand back. "You all right? Did he hurt you?"

"Yes. God, yes! Yes, he did, Jack!" Daniel swore, his voice shaking with fright, but packing the force of building anger. "We have to ... get ... out," Daniel gasped the last few words as he hyperventilated. The dark room was spinning.

"Yeah, get outta this crazy place. Where are we?"

"Austria," Daniel said. "I think his estate in Austria. Maybe Northern Italy. He had land there too. I don't know, Jack. We have to ... Can you cut this thing out of me? If not ..."

"You know this madman?"

"No. Please, I don't. I won't play for him ever again. I won't. I'll kill him, Jack. If he dies, we can leave. If ... if I can't get out you go. Don't-- I mean ... Jack ..."

"Daniel, pull yourself together and tell me what the fuck this is about."

"No. He hurt me. That's all. Let's ... if we go together to the edge of the estate we can get out—"

"Okay, okay," Jack said, realizing he'd pushed the man too far. The last time he’d seen him Daniel had been nearly comatose. Jack backed off and tried to calm things down. "Let's stay calm," he said to reinforce his earlier command for Daniel to pull himself together. "Okay, you know this guy, right?"

"No." Still on his hands and knees, Daniel shook his head.

"He knows you from your past? You used to play the piano?"

"Never again," Daniel swore. “We have to try.” He scrambled to his feet and ran to the doors that led outside. He threw himself through one of them, Jack hard on his heels. Less than a couple of meters past the opening Daniel screamed and rolled into a ball. He held his chest as pain burned through him. 

Jack dropped to the ground and grabbed at Daniel. 

The next thing Jack was aware of was being carried by his wrists and ankles back inside the piano room. He saw the canopy of stars change to one of a distant, black ceiling. He tried to turn his head, to assess the situation but his neck muscles refused to obey. He felt hours pass by as he lay there. He'd wet himself outside on the lawn by Daniel's side. That fueled his anger.

Finally he had enough strength to roll onto his side. Daniel was stretched out five feet from him, laying on top of one of those Japanese bedrolls, staring at the ceiling. His glasses were gone. The bedroll hadn’t been in the room before their mad dash outside. Daniel must have been brought back inside before him, taken care of and placed on the cushioned surface.

"Daniel?" His team mate hadn’t moved a muscle. Maybe he couldn’t.

"Had to try it," Daniel said flatly. "Sorry. Won't happen again."

Jack grimaced. "What can you tell me about him? What do I need to know that might help us get out of here?"

"He ... collects things. Me. Collected."

"He ... collected you?" Jack asked, clearly baffled.

"Wanted what I was back then. To possess me. I used to ... Nick did what he thought was best." Daniel struggled up to sit on the cold floor. "We could run faster, try to get to the edge of the clearing. The tree line out there," he said, finally lifting one hand and pointing out the open door. "You can get, what? Fifty yards beyond me there? Maybe find someone to call for help."

"That'll kill you. You can't get that far from this house."

"Cut this thing out of me, then you carry it with you, the transmitter or whatever it is."

"Cut it out? How deep in is it?"

"He said it was by my heart." Daniel laid his hand over the stitches. He’d pulled some out. The incision site hurt.

"Christ!" Jack swore. "We're screwed on that. Another plan?"

"I won't ... I can't perform for him, Jack. I can't. I’m sorry. He'll hurt you."

"We've gotten out of tougher situations before."

"No, we haven't. I was with him for months the last time. This time I won't last that long. I've got to kill him."

Mister Black came back in then, accompanied by a cadre of muscular men dressed in tight-fitting black shirts and dark pants. He snapped his fingers, pointing at Jack in his soiled white scrubs. The four men grabbed him the same way the’d held him before and hastily carried him through a pair of the open French doors. 

Jack began to curse and fight with them. Twenty yards from the building he was howling in pain.

Inside, Daniel was being held on the floor by four more men. He’d found the strength to scramble off the bed only to be stopped halfway to the open doors. Mister Black stood at the open doorway watching. "Take care with my virtuoso’s fingers. Your little soldier boy is about thirty meters away. Forty, my beauty. How much farther? It really is up to you," he said, glancing over his shoulder at Daniel. He crossed his arms and turned back to watch Jack's struggles.

"Stop them!" Daniel screamed. "I can't perform for you. You ruined me. You took it away. Didn't you know that, you sick bastard? You took my gift away." One of the men on his back slipped, sliding his knee down Daniel’s ribs. The stitches tore further and Daniel felt the wetness of blood seeping down to the black floor.

Mister Black snapped his fingers in the air and Jack's cries of pain grew louder. They were bringing him back closer to the house. Jack was gasping hoarsely as they got to the doorway. Mister Black snapped his fingers once and the men stood Jack up, two of them maintaining a firm hold under his arms. Jack was obviously unable to stand on his own. 

The collector turned back to Daniel. "As long as you're willing to have an open dialogue, I'll show your tin soldier some mercy. Now, my sweet virtuoso, get up off the floor. I think you should practice, don't you?"

Daniel shrugged from the loosening grasp of his captors and climbed to his bare feet ignoring the trickle of blood under his pajama top. "Weren't you listening to me, you sick fuck? You destroyed my gift. Destroyed it! I have nothing left. You don't collect damaged goods. I don't belong in your collection any longer." His gaze slid from the monster facing him to Jack who hung limp in the clutches of the men who'd carried him out.

Mister Black glared. "I see no damage. In fact, you look even more delicious than the last time I tasted you. Virgin boy. I took your virginity. Did you tell your colonel that yet? Does he know I had you long before he did? When you were so tight, so innocent. Oh, the naïve and sweet cries for mercy that you made. Shall I tell him how your tears tasted then?" Mister Black crossed his arms and smiled darkly.

The man kept his eyes on Daniel, though he began to address Jack. "Colonel, you've probably no appreciation for what you've been feasting on these past few years. Yes, I know all about your dirty little affair with the archaeologist. It's not supposed to be allowed in the United States, is it? You could be taken to Militargerichteshof or some such American military court version, suffer consequence. Thought you'd kept it so well hidden, didn't you, Colonel Jonathan J. O'Neill? But I know what you've been doing, pushing your way, your cock into what belongs to me. And for that? You may have to pay with your life."

"Belongs to ..." Daniel bit his words off as anger blinded him. "I don't belong to you. I'm not an object to be bought or sold or ... collected."

"You are mine as much as the Bösendorfer. Just as I own it, I own you."

"Ung!" Jack groaned as he renewed his struggle in the grasp of the silent men.

"No. When I was a boy, I couldn't reason with you. I couldn't defend myself against the insanity that exists inside your head. But now, now you sick ..." Daniel clamped his lips together. Where was that icy calm he'd developed over the last seven years of being at Jack's side? Where had it gone to leave this quivering child in its place? This is what he did in the early days of working with Jack, this uncontrolled outburst, this hysteria. Daniel hugged himself and bowed his head.

"Better," Mister Black said. "Much better. You do remember that I like my possessions to be tidy in their posture when in my presence and when I'm not using them. The crossed arms and head down, I see your remember my training well. Now, I've said I would be lenient with your tin soldier, but leniency has its limits." He smiled at Daniel's bowed head and then walked to Jack. Casually, he reached out and laid a finger on Jack's wrist. 

Deep screams tore through the barren room, echoing off the expansive walls as Jack writhed under the light touch. The man finally backed away and Jack gulped in lungfulls of air. His vision stayed red and he didn't even realize when it had turned that bloody color.

With his face a bleak mask, hiding all emotions, Daniel brought his head up and stared at the horror before him. This deadpan stare was something else he’d learned from the collector long ago.

"Closes the circuit, you see," Mister Black explained. "The transponder in his skull, from the transmitter within me. Yes, my treasure. I had it implanted in me." He pulled up his sleeve and turned to show his forearm to Daniel. A long, thin tube could be seen just barely under the skin. It seemed to be angled down and disappeared under muscle and tendon, going deeper into the man's arm. "No chance of it being lost or stolen by your soldier. And I'll never forget it after a bath. A mere press here," he said, his thumb hovering over his own wrist, "and he receives a brief, but full jolt." 

Black pressed the spot briefly and Jack's back arched hard, his limbs hyper-extending in a full-body convulsion that lasted only a few seconds. Then he hung panting and swaying in the henchmen's hands.

"Delightful! And that was only the briefest of touches. I love this new toy." Then he turned to stare hard at Daniel. "I told you, I won't lose you a second time, my sweet. As new acquisitions are made and installed here they too will be implanted as you are, all tuned to my transmitter. The living art I retained after the raid, they’ve no need of such motivation. Their conditioning was complete years ago. But you? My most valuable possession, you will perform for me again,and you will begin by practicing now. Or..." he said, holding his thumb over his wrist again.

Daniel rose and went to the Bösendorfer. He sat and made a minute adjustment to the seat. Then he turned back to glare at his captor. "I practice alone. You remember that, don't you?"

Mister Black smirked and then let out a long, hard laugh. "My property sasses me. Sometimes I think I hear one of the Caravaggios sassing me too. You and he have much in common." Then the man's tone changed from masterful disdain to harsh and guttural. "He was a real cunt in his day too, I hear." 

The collector walked to the door. "But it does warm my heart, sweet one, to know you remember so much about our time together. Practice in private. Your soldier will be taken next door."

"Leave him," Daniel said, his voice as full of conviction as he could ever have managed under any circumstance. “He’s not one of your collection. He’s nothing to you.”

Pausing in the doorway with his back to Daniel, Mister Black brought his hand up and snapped his fingers twice. 

Jack was dropped hard to the floor, his soiled scrubs were pulled off and a pair of clean scrubs were thrown down beside him. Then the men who'd held him took the dirty clothing and silently followed their master from the room.

Daniel gripped the edge of the padded bench and stared at the black and white keys that taunted him mercilessly with their orderliness.

"Danny," Jack called. "Gotta try to get out again. The doors are open."

"How far, Jack? I can make it pretty far, I think. Then you have to swear you'll go on, go as far as the thing in me will let you. Or cut it out of me. If I can't ... I mean—"

"The house," Jack argued with himself. "You really can't try that again. There has to be a transmitter within the house. Something that senses you crossing a threshold or a window, like an alarm system. Otherwise the bastard would never be able to leave without taking you along. Or does he plan to do that forever?”

“No. He’ll have more people in his collection than he could be bothered to transport. No, a transmitter somewhere in the house makes sense. If I practice some, you can start checking the French doors. He'll probably be content if he hears me ..."

"Can you?" Jack asked. He dressed in a black en suite restroom. It was no more than a niche in the wall with prison-like facilities. It had no door, no mirror, hand towel or toiled paper. Then he approached the piano that sat in the only pool of light in the room. He stopped five feet from his teammate. "God," Jack said, closing his eyes in pleasure. "Pain does fade if I'm this close."

Daniel closed his eyes. "You're close to me. I can feel you, but you're too tempting. I'll start playing. You get to the doors." With his eyes still closed Daniel brought his hands over the keyboard. It truly was a magnificent instrument. He lightly actuated several keys. The unending richness of the sound and variation of the tones, the timbre and enormous potential and dynamic were evident even through the few notes he'd struck so far.

"He had a Bösendorfer before. It was a limited edition. I don't remember the name of the design. Something gauche. I just remember ..." Daniel brought his hands down, striking a harmonious cord, though he longed to hear dissonance. 

"I'm going to the ... " Jack backed away, rubbing at his temples. He avoided the fresh scar at the top of his spine. He checked through the hall doorway and saw two thick-necked men stationed halfway down the dark passage. Both had remote triggering devices strapped to their wrists but no sidearms. The men didn’t need such weapons and their absence provided Jack zero opportunities to arm himself. Jack ducked back inside the dark room and hurried through the nearest doorway, the one he'd been tortured in earlier. He ran his hands along the open frame. "Nothing," he murmured through the notes Daniel played.

Beethoven's Piano Concerto number five, Jack recognized it. Daniel was striking the keys both timidly, and at the same time, angrily. Jack creased his brow as he crossed to the other doorpost. Then he inspected the jamb in the dim light. There was a gap that shouldn't be there. The door was about ten feet tall. He couldn't reach it without standing on something and the only thing close that would work was the piano bench.

Daniel was staring off into the distance as he played. Jack approached cautiously this time, feeling the pain fade little by little. He gave into the temptation and gently rubbed at his neck as he watched Daniel. His eyes were unfocused, haunted. "What are you seeing?"

With a sharp intake of breath, Daniel froze, his fingers holding keys down. Then he shook his head. "Have you found anything?"

"I need the piano bench. That possible?"

"Yes. Be careful when you take it. Don't touch me." Daniel rose and resumed playing the haunting song. "I have to play something else. Liszt. I have to think."

"No sheet music?" Jack asked as he pulled the bench back.

Daniel glared over his shoulder at him.

Jack glared back for a brief moment. "I was just asking."

"Don't." Daniel turned back to the piano and played on.

Jack climbed on the bench and strained to see the top of the frame. He ran his fingers up the sides and felt grooves in the wood. Then he saw them, the metallic glint of spikes. Jack hopped off the bench, wincing as he landed. His head pounded more than his knees. He took the bench to the farthest doorway and endured more pain in his temples as he examined it. He was too far away here. Being kept in the room next door had been miserable. Many more days of that and he'd be a basket case.

And Daniel? How long could he endure this? The bastard had taken Daniel when he was a teenager, had obviously done things to him that no kid should even know about much less endure. Right now Daniel seemed lost in the memories of that terrible abuse and Jack needed him to let those memories go and be in the here and now. He felt like a bastard but he was going to have to get Daniel on mission.

Back at Daniel's side he began to explain. "The place can be locked down. There are bars recessed into the doorway openings. Possibly triggered if you walk over the threshold without the ... animal. I don't remember anything after touching you when we were outside. Were they down?"

"I don't know. But, collector," Daniel said. "If you have to face him again, that's what you call him or he'll start hurting you."

"Start?" Jack said challengingly.

"Start. He hasn't started yet, I assure you." Daniel softly switched to another composer's work playing a few notes of one piece, a few of another. “You’re not one of his pieces of living art. He won’t hesitate to dispose of you if he thinks you’re useless as a motivation for my performances.

"He used to have a ballet dancer in his collection. A Russian. The man kept defying him and the collector found someone more talented. He made us watch as he disposed of the Russian. The collector had a display hall for his living art as he called us. Glass display cases for each. I was only in the hall a few times but I remember it well. My case was small, had a chair bolted to the floor. I was expected to sit upright, arms crossed in a particular way and perfectly still when he walked in. First time I was stuffed in it I had a panic attack. Claustrophobic even though the walls were glass. I didn’t have the capacity to comply.  
“I can remember now how the other living objects reacted to my first presentation in the hall. I remember seeing shocked looks. One of them yelled out that I was too young. The man spoke in French and the collector smiled at me as if he was proud of the shock he’d caused to his possessions.

“But I couldn’t comply and I realize now that he enjoyed that inability. He’d punish me. I never sat as expected until my last few exhibitions. That was when the Russian was disposed of in I guess what the collector considered a live performance. I’d never seen so much gore."

Jack shook his head and cleared his throat. What Daniel was confessing to him chilled him to the core of his soul. He’d kept this secret all the years of their relationship. As Jack had poured out his heart in long nights in a shared bed, during times when Daniel too had talked through past anguishes not even a hint had come out about the collector. But it was Jack’s job to keep the two of them on mission. "So our best bet is to get him outside. I can't touch him, but you could. In fact, that's what he plans on, isn't it?" Jack asked, determined to see if Daniel was as prepared as possible for what Jack knew was to come. "I've seen the way he looks at you."

"Possibly. Though, I'm too old for his tastes, I think. Thought I was anyway but my memories are from the viewpoint of a fourteen year old but now that I see it I know I was the youngest in the exhibition hall. Thought I was too old for him. Probably why I relaxed my guard, and the result was that he got to me."

"Relaxed your guard? He snatched us from my house. My guard doesn't relax."

"I've stayed in one place too long. Years in Colorado Springs. Even though I haven't published lately, it's known in certain circles where I am. I should have ... but for the here and now, what you need to know is this man has no conscience, no restraint. There are no limits to what he will go to just to own something, someone."

"He kidnapped you before?" Jack needed to know details though it still made him feel like a bastard to drag this out of the man he loved.

Daniel laughed harshly. "You could say that. I was living in Eisenstadt, attending a conservatory. Nick hand-picked my foster parents. They were wonderful people. He wanted my education to continue, wanted me to follow in my mother's early footsteps, not be pulled off the path as she had been when she met my father. They were supportive of Nick’s goals. I had private tutors in Italy until I was thirteen and was sent to Eisenstadt to the conservatory there. He, the collector saw me perform sometime, someplace and wanted me, so he collected me. I lived as one of his objects for almost six months. That's an eternity for boys, you know? From the day I was rescued, I never performed again."

"But you've got a piano back home."

"Maybe that's what he was waiting for. Maybe if I'd never given in to that weakness, that desire..." Daniel shook his head. "The guy is very sick, Jack. He'll try to torture music out of me. It's not there, and when he finally accepts that he'll probably kill us both."

"But I hear music. You're playing."

Daniel smirked. "You have no ear for music, do you?"

"Actually," Jack said slowly, "I do." How many people had he shocked in his truck when opera or some orchestra music came out of his truck’s speakers instead of Colorado honky-tonk songs?

"You're hearing me beat this thing like it's a piano bar loaded down with whisky sours and heaping ash trays."

Jack shook his head.

"This is not music and whether you know it or not, the collector does. What else can we do before he gets back?"

"I'll try walking outside and see what happens."

"You and me go together, then," Daniel said. "So we don't get separated. It's hurting you being just a little ways from me now, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I'm worn out from the pain. They kept me locked in that room next door for too long. Blinding headache."

"The idea I mentioned earlier about cutting it out of me, you won't forget that, will you?"

"Yes. Stupid idea, Daniel. One of your more stupider ones. Next idea?"

"I'm serious, Jack. If I can't get away from him you do that."

"Let's set aside for the moment, the fact that I will never cut into you, carve around your heart in order to save myself, shall we? And to stop you arguing let's consider the fact that if I tried it I'd be shocked to death. Hum?" Jack said, tilting his head toward Daniel and glaring at him.

"But I think the shocks would stop if I were dead."

"Why?" His tone was challenging. He clearly doubted Daniel.

"Well," Daniel paused as his tuneless plunking faltered, "if it's electrically conducted and the host is dead—"

"You think he's a ... you-know-what?" Jack asked, effectively changing the subject. He glanced around for bugs that were surely present.

"No. I've given that a lot of thought over the years. He loves expensive things, loves to own the rarest, most exquisite things, but no. He's not ... one," Daniel said, following Jack's furtive gaze for surveillance. "And there won't be any cameras or sound in here. He never allows himself or any of his ... collection to be observed.”

“When I woke up downstairs he had two way audio in that room.”

“Mean’s nothing. You’re not part of his collection. And he's not a Goa'uld. He hides from public adoration. Can't stand having an audience. I always performed alone for him. At the piano ... or ... tied on it. Always just him and me."

"A lot of thought over the years," Jack softly prompted, studying the profile of the man he loved.

"Yes," Daniel whispered as his aimless, rambling scales softened. "When we discovered there were Goa'uld all over the galaxy I had a fleeting thought about him. Just a nagging really. You know the usual what if questions we ask ourselves. Then we discovered Hathor and those questions roared up again like nasty snakes. Same thing again when we found Seth here on Earth. But I knew they were just irrational fears. He's not one of them. He's not. He's just a sick son of a bitch. What's your next idea for getting out of here?"

“No bugs, no cameras?”

“I’m sure. However I’m also sure someone is observing me with binoculars through the doors and windows. In the trees, in some metal observation tower. Someone is probably just outside the open doorway eavesdropping on my actions, my behavior. Like guards at a museum.”

Jack frowned. “Like zoo keepers.”

After a few deep breaths Jack squared his shoulders. "I can't touch him. But you can. In fact, he wants that, doesn't he?"

Daniel bowed his head.

"Listen," Jack said, leaning closer to whisper, "if he comes back alone, we'll make our move. You knock him down and ... we have the piano bench. There's not a damned thing else in this room. Nothing detachable in the restroom. So the bench is what we have."

"A leg off of it. Sharpen the end. This is an extended clavier. Keyboard," Daniel added. "The extra keys in the bass range, can you get one of the wires out? It'll be easy for me to avoid any Debussy or of course, Ravel. I won't need the nine sub base notes. Take any of those if you can get them out without tools."

Jack leaned into the piano casing and stretched across, found he couldn't reach what he wanted and had to open the lid to its maximum diameter. There, he worked, trying to get a string out. Without tools it was impossible. He spied what he needed outside of one of the French doors and reached it by stretching his arm about a foot outside the house; a discarded tiny scrap of tin from a gardener's toolbox. Mindful of the watchers he patted his hand around in several places, as if just feeing the grass and smoothly captured the metal between two fingers to retrieve it. With that, he pried a finishing nail from the wall of the doorframe and then had leverage as well as gripping ability to work the wire from the piano.

Daniel had kept up the aimless, disjointed note patterns. Jack did know the difference. The sounds he heard Daniel making now were almost as grating as the dull pain he felt when he walked more than five feet away from his teammate.

He coiled the stiff, thick wire as tightly as possible in his hand, gaining small cuts on palms and fingertips. Where could he hide the wire until an opportunity came to use it? He had no pockets in the white scrubs he wore, no shoe to slip it in. He ended up wedging it under the piano's baseboard in the corner by the left leg. The nail and scrap of sharp metal went in the slight hollow behind the steel toilet in the restroom. Then he returned and he and Daniel whispered out possible scenarios. 

Daniel's disjointed note patterns deteriorated.

Their planning was interrupted as Mister Black returned with several of his zoo keepers. With a press on his inner wrist, Mister Black sent Jack writhing to the floor. Four of Black's men grappled with him. As the military man was being carried to the doorway he saw one of the zoo keepers lower the piano lid and begin laying ropes across it. The quartet of zoo keepers at the direction of Mister Black dropped Jack face down on the floor and stood on his legs and shoulders

Jack saw that Daniel lurched from his seat and fell but then gained his footing, fleeing to the open French doors. He didn't make his escape before the spiked bars dropped from the ceiling, sealing his way to what would only have been a temporary freedom. He'd been running toward death. His increased distance sent Jack's head spinning with spikes as sharp and piercing as those that had descended from the ceiling.

Screams of uncontrolled anger and defiance bellowed from Daniel as he fought a losing battle with several more of the collector's henchmen. He flipped one of the men and gave another a mortal throat punch that had the burly man on the floor unable to draw breath. Daniel kicked, punched and even bit the rest as they swarmed him. Two of Jack's silent pack left him and joined in the effort to drag Daniel back to the piano. He was dropped to the floor. But the rough treatment only spurred him to fight harder. Daniel downed two more of the cadre. Jack's number of handlers was decreased again, only one left kneeling in the middle of his back. With the zoo keeper pressing the damned button every few moments Jack was in no shape to rise even if there was no one left to torture him. The pain stripped him of his ability to keep Daniel in view. The sounds told him his teammate was now on top of the grand cursing at the pack tying him down.

With Mister Black's attention now settled on Daniel he had no time to bother giving Jack new jolts of mind-killing pain. Jack's vision cleared but he got no renewed use of his limbs. A zoo keeper still knelt on him but he knew this fact only by the periphery of the hands extended on either side of his head. His skin sensation was useless.

Daniel's left hand extended past the edge of the grand, wrist encircled with brown ropes that appeared to be rough hemp. Primitive for a man like Black to be using, Jack wondered at the odd choice and how it might help him defeat the collector. Any bit of knowledge could help defeat an enemy but Jack was fuck-all lost on how this might help. Mister Black was a showman, but only for his own satisfaction. The ropes were primitive and so was the act he was about to commit.

One of Daniel’s raised knees was visible, coils of the hemp around his calf. The other was probably in the same position.

Jack grimaced as Black used the piano bench to climb on the grand's glossy surface. He thumbed his arm again and then only faintly could Jack discern he'd commanded his men to leave him alone with his virtuoso. But Jack was still on the floor by the open door. The men had left him to see the heinous act?

The collector began to tear the clothing off Daniel, little strips at a time as if unwrapping a present at some macabre party. He made slow work of it. Jack could see the man’s teeth gleaming as he smiled unnaturally broadly. Jack was still unable to move even a finger. Daniel was cursing though, and in so many languages it was stunning to hear. A word or two of Goa'uld burst through. There was a phrase in ancient Egyptian, the Abydonian dialect, a curse word Skaara had taught Feretti and him long ago.

He was about to rape Daniel. The cursing stopped and in the absence Jack could hear the subtle sounds of skin on skin. 

Then Daniel's voice returned in English, cold and loud. "If you do this I'll be the one who kills you."

Jack felt the tug on his leg as one of the zoo keepers pulled him from the room. Then he heard one last scream of pain from Daniel before he was too far away to hear, too filled with pain of his own to think. 

End of Part Two

The musical compositions, piano and artwork mentioned in the story are factual and may be located on the net.


End file.
